A bit of management thinking was called for. India is very in your face. Buses and trains are a bit like mobile streets. Dirty, smelly and overcrowded. We are travel weary and we needed an antidote from the outside world. We had a management meeting and decided to 'flash pack'. Up the budget to better hotels and fly the long journeys. We flew into Chennai (Madras) and had the usual white knuckle taxi ride to our hotel. The street outside was pretty grim but t...

Our next stop was Kochi in Kerala state. We were going to spend New Year's Eve here. It's a small island with the main town being Ernakulum. The bus drive had been the usual white knuckle ride. Once off the bus we took a rickshaw to the ferry jetty. It's difficult to sum up India but one consistent factor is their strange way of doing any given thing. Today it was buying a ferry ticket. There is one kiosk with one man selling tickets. There are two queues. One ...

Mangalore had been what we expected. A big, noisy, dirty town. The hotel had been ok but in keeping with each and every one so far in India not without some failings. We ordered the same breakfast for three days and got three different things. On the third day I said 'This isn't what I ordered'. The waiter replied (with a head wobble) 'Yes sir, you get three of the items listed with your eggs'. 'Ok' I said, 'But shouldn't I get to choose them not you'. He looke...

Leaving Hampi was straightforward. We had cultivated a rickshaw driver while we had been there and he drove us to Hospet bus station. We were soon on the bus to Hubli. We had tried the usual web sites to get a decent hotel for the one night stopover but hadn't come up with much. In the end the hotel manager phoned one he knew and booked us in. Hubli itself is quite a large place but it is mostly a business town so not tourist friendly. We arrived at the bus s...

We set our alarm for 6am to get the 7am bus to Hospet. We needn't have bothered. Although India is 90% Hindu there are still a lot of Muslims. This part of India is a little Muslim enclave. So 5.30am and the local mosque fire up the stereo and let the entire state hear the call to prayer. I've always thought if followers are as keen as they make out do they need some geezer wailing through loudspeakers to remind them of their duty? Apparently the answer is yes....